Various types of card connectors for use with personal computers, digital cameras, and the like are known. As an example of such connectors, a card connector that comprises an insulative housing having a terminal, a metal shell mounted on the housing and defining a card receiving space with a top plate and a pair of side plates hanging from both edges of the top plate, and a heart cam groove provided along a lower portion of one of the sides of the card receiving space is known as described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-327149 (FIGS. 1 and 14).
Another known device, a connector device for memory card that comprises a contact block having a heart cam groove on one end thereof, a slider that moves within the connector body in the forward-backward directions, and a lock metal having a lock piece that engages in the guide groove of the heart cam groove is known as described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-207168 (FIG. 1).
Stiff another known device, a card connector that comprises a housing having a contact held therein and a heart-shaped cam groove, and a slider provided in the housing such that it slides along the card insertion-removal directions is known as described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-291553 (FIGS. 6, 8, and 11).
Recently, card connectors for use with cell phones other than the applications described above, which may detachably hold a card for recording downloaded music or an image obtained by a cell phone camera, are demanded. A cell phone, however, comprises many electrical and electronic parts, so that it is necessary to make the card connector extremely compact and thin in order to be incorporated in the cell phone. In the card connector disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-327149, the heart cam groove is provided on the surface of the cam slider which is orthogonal to the principal surface of the card. Likewise, in the connector device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-207168, the heart cam groove is provided on the surface of the contact block (housing) which is orthogonal to the principal surface of the card. These heart cam groove and heart cam groove section have a closed loop and requires a certain width. Accordingly, these connectors have a problem that the size in the height direction inevitably becomes significant although the size in the width direction of the connector, i.e., the width direction of the card may be reduced.
In the mean time, in the card connector disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-291553, the heart-shaped cam groove is provided on the surface of the housing (slider mounting section) which is parallel with the principal surface of the card, and the slider is formed so as to slide on the housing. The cam groove is formed in a shape such that the size of the connector in the width direction is reduced. In order to form the cam groove, however, the slider mounting section of the housing requires a certain thickness, and the thickness of the slider is added thereto, so that, in total, the thickness of the connector becomes significant.
The present invention has been developed in view of the circumstances described above, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a compact card connector with a reduced thickness.